Harold Lamb

“ Togrukh and his mates knew that Ayub’s ribs had been burned black over the brazier of a Turkish torturer, and a pound or so of his three hundred-weight consisted of grape-shot in the chest and thighs from a Polish culverin. Because of his reputation for nosing out trouble as a hound scents a hare, he never lacked for followers among the Cossacks.
“Ayub,” said the stolid Togrukh, “we know that you are the comrade of the falcon, our colonel. As God lives, you are a very brother to him, and that is good. But what is this about an order? We have no officers in the camp. ”

“ When the sun is warm, the snow pigeon soars into the air, but the wild goose wings its way to the gray north.
SNOW was falling that evening in December, when the year 1613 of Our Lord was drawing to its close. A sighing wind from the open steppe swept the drifted snow from the roofs of the barracks and sent it swirling along the parade ground of the Siech, the war encampment of the Cossacks. ”

“ Our sotniks are dead, and our ataman, our colonel, is up the river. Who gives an order to the Don regiment?”
Togrukh reached out and gripped the orderly’s beard, swinging the smouldering board with his free hand to keep the flames going. His white teeth gleamed through the tangle of a black mustache.
“So, good sir,” he growled, “the noble elders would like to give an order to the men from the Don, eh? They sent you, shrinking rose-vine, and you came, lovely little flower!”
“The rose-bud came, the lovely little flower,” chanted the warriors gleefully. ”

“ Constantinople was too strong to attack, and as for ventures upon the seas—the Turks and the Barbary beys were masters there.
“We can not ransom the koshevoi," the captain mused, “yet if we do not keep faith with our father, all the warriors of the world will point at us and say there is no faith in the brotherhood of the Cossacks. ”

“ Doubtless the Scribe wants the life let out of the prisoners in the pen, and it is always the Don regiment that is summoned when a dog’s work is to be done.”
“If the falcon, your colonel, gave an order would the Donskoi obey?”
An angry mutter went up from the listeners, who plainly considered themselves affronted by this remark.
“Aye,” responded Togrukh, who was the only surviving non-com, “if we obeyed not—there would be terror.”
“Then,” Ayub assured him, “there will be terror if you do not obey now. Demid, your chief, is here in the camp. ”

“ And it was empty because the Siech lacked a leader as well as a priest.
Rurik, called the “Fair,” a one-eyed veteran of many wars, had been the chief of the Cossacks. During the hard campaign of last Summer when the frontier had been over-run by the Turks from Constantinople, Rurik had been taken prisoner. After being paraded in chains before the Sultan he had been set to work with the other Christian slaves and a demand for ransom sent to the Siech. And the demand was for more than a king’s ransom—ten thousand gold sequins. ”

“ And a dwarf came up from behind a log and pulled my coat, crying, just like a child in pain——”
“Evil times,” assented a warrior who lacked a coat and leaned his spear against his shoulder to hold his fists the closer to the blaze. ”